Circe, the daughter of Helios, is depicted in the tenth canto of the Odyssey as the blond-haired goddess of nature and wild beasts. Isolated in the heart of the island of Eea, she lives within a forest that fortifies her independence, wisdom, and resilience for survival. In Odiseicas, Carmen Estrada notes that this portrayal can be disconcerting to many minds, presenting Circe as a figure who commands danger with a drink even as she favors the bold over the timid. Thus Kirke, historically, has been seen as a magician who transforms visitors into animals, a trope that mixes menace with a certain fierce generosity toward the brave.
Estrada argues that Circe and Penelope are among the most manipulated and misread figures in the Odyssey across later literary traditions. When linked with Ovid, Circe gains notoriety as a figure of black magic, becoming not only a sorceress but also a symbol of sensuality and jealousy. In the Odyssey, Circe initially pretends to be a witch as she turns Odysseus’s crew into pigs, only later restoring them to their human state. Yet she also supplies the means for Odysseus to avoid the Sirens, guides his steps at times, and even advises on the best course and offerings needed to endure the next chapters of the voyage.
James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) places Circe under the spotlight in chapter 15, with the scene set in a midnight brothel. Here the art is magical, the symbol is the prostitute, and the technique is a hallucinatory drift induced by drugs or magic. The episode unfolds as a chaotic Walpurgis Night, a carnival of distorted visions in which Bloom confronts Circe’s most unguarded thoughts. Circe’s street presence amid grotesque figures, painted women, and aggressive men in foggy streets offers a stark, uneasy take that many European Modernists exported to later literature.
Lourdes Ortiz later echoed these explorations in Los motivos de Circe (1991), giving voice to how Penelope and Circe felt, and what it meant for a legitimate wife to wait while Circe’s departures unsettled their lives. Circe, who shared countless nights and war stories with Odysseus, becomes a lens to explore whispered intimacies and the dynamics of a long voyage, while Ortiz also speculates on why Circe might turn every approaching man into a monster.
Earlier, Margaret Atwood began humanizing Circe’s motifs in Circe/Mud Poems (1974), and in prose Begoña Caamaño expands Circe’s voice in Kirke or the Taste of the Blue. Caamaño dramatizes the correspondence between Circe and Penelope during Odysseus’s stay on Eea, underscoring a lineage of powerful women—queens, demigods, goddesses—who speak and feel like real people. Circe speaks for herself and for her niece Medea, while Penelope reflects on cousins like Andromache, Clytemnestra, and Helen, each rendered with human nuance and emotion.
classic epic
Caamaño’s novel presents three layers of expression: what Circe and Penelope say, think, and write. The result is a dense, often poetic exploration that examines intimate, social, and political dimensions. The letters and conversations between Circe and Penelope sharpen our sense of the classic epic as seen through a female-centered lens. From this approach, Odysseus becomes a peripheral figure, while Telemachus rises in prominence due to Penelope’s influence and love.
Circe clarifies to Penelope that she does not turn men into monsters out of cruelty or amusement; rather, she assigns them forms that reflect their conduct. The ferocity, the lack of restraint in human relations, mirrors the sailors’ behavior when they first reached the island, and Circe grants them the external shape that aligns with their deeds, in this case, pigs.
Buoyed by Circe and secure in a newly formed sisterhood, Penelope begins to act as queen of Ithaca. She disciplines Telemachus, maintains ties with Odysseus’s father-in-law, and enacts policies that safeguard women, such as preventing husbands’ land from being seized from widows. In this way Circe’s influence helps transform Penelope from a waiting wife into a decisive leader—not through magic alone, but through the magic of words.
In 2018, Madeline Miller offered a contemporary reimagining of Circe in her novel Circe, merging established myths with a modern sensibility. Miller threads together known tales of Circe with the doubts, fears, anger, and love that shape her. Circe is already a formidable literary hero—deep, nuanced, and intrinsically human.